Comic

Jason Kenney, the nation’s portly minister of immigration, proudly announced this week that in the year 2010 Canada welcomed over 280,600 immigrants to the country; the largest one-year total in almost six decades.

At a special celebratory press conference, Minister Kenney gave the standard political justification for the high numbers he worked so hard to achieve, declaring that “Canada’s post-recession economy demands a high level of economic immigration to keep our economy strong.”

For how long must we sit idly by and listen while politicians such as Minister Jason Kenney spout worthless bromides about how Canada must continue to increase its immigration rate in order to “improve our economic performance,” or whatever the latest talking points are.

While certain types of immigrants can theoretically help grow the Canadian economy by providing needed skills or talents, the actual statistics show that such “economic” migrants only comprise a minority of our overall immigrant take in. Far more immigrants enter the country as sponsored relatives of existing ones, or as charity case refugees, neither of which category serves much obvious economic purpose.

This obsession with continuously raising our immigration rates is politics, pure and simple. Since the Tories know they’ll never win a majority government with the present Canadian population, their only hope for future electoral success is, to quote journalist Peter Brimelow, “dissolving the people and electing a new one.

Canada is said to be the single most generous nation on earth when it comes to open-doors immigration, and one of the great lies of Canadian politics is that this policy serves any coherent economic purpose. As I noted in my letter, though Canada does target the admission of so-called “economic class” immigrants who come to this country bringing useful skills or accreditation, the majority of immigrants welcomed to Canada have no obvious economic benefit whatsoever. This becomes obvious after even a quick peruse the 2010 numbers on the department of immigration’s own website.

Of the 280,636 folks who came to Canada last year, 170,536 of them, or about 60%, were simply relatives of other immigrants; either sponsored latecomers joining family members already settled, or those brought along at the time as spouses or “dependents.” Another 8% were refugees, and 3% were “other”(?), meaning the grand total of people brought into Canada for the explicit purpose of improving the Canadian economy, as Kennedy alluded to, only comprised about 29% of our overall immigrant take-in.

And obviously in a welfare state as generous as Canada’s, it’s an open question as to whether or not the economic gains brought by economic class migrants are even substantial enough to cancel out the net losses brought by their frequently far-less productive collection of tag-along “dependents.” Indeed, the depressing fact remains that the government of Canada does not even bother to crunch these numbers at all, so impolite is the matter considered. So when a political espouses the “need” for economic immigration, you can rest assured that he’s simply spouting stale truisms that “feel right.”

Canada’s immigration hustle is a bit different than the one in America, which, for all its obvious faults, does at least have a sort of twisted, exploitative economic logic to it. Lacking a third-world border for people to stream across, the Canadian immigration model is far more voluntary — and thus political — in nature. Immigrants are brought into Canada largely because it is politically popular with other immigrants to do so, a generosity which politicians can then giftwrap and market in exchange for partisan loyalty.

In an era where the Canadian political discourse is becoming increasingly vacuous and boring, immigrant communities from Asia, Africa, or the Middle East can often prove far easier to rally to the polls in large numbers. Through shallow tactics such as ethnic candidates, pandering speeches, or, of course, promises of an ever-laxer immigration policy to bring over more friends and relatives, immigrants can be easily motivated to perform the civic duties that Canadians have grown too cynical for.

For a long time, such strategy was a hallmark of the Liberal Party, and routinely criticized by conservative leaders, including Stephen Harper. But now, surprise surprise, the Conservatives have found the same tactics work just as well when employed for their side. Kenney in particular has taken immigrant pandering to a new level, often loudly announcing that immigrant “outreach” must be one of the cornerstones of future Conservative electoral success.

Amidst all this, the Canadian public (remember them?) have continued to tell pollsters the same things they’ve always said: we don’t want immigration to increase. An Angus Reid poll taken this fall found that only 16% of Canadians said they wanted to see immigration increase, with 39% instead saying they wanted it to stay the same and 38% saying they wanted to see it decrease. Yet up it has steadily gone anyway, especially during the 1990s and 2000s, as we edge ever-closer to importing a full 1% of our population every year.

Now immigrants themselves are obviously fun and lovely people, and one can’t live in a vibrant multicultural city like Vancouver, as I do, without having some appreciation for what imported diversity can bring. But still, the fact remains that Canada’s 21st Century immigration policy is one of the most sweeping, transformative, and culturally and economically uncertain projects ever undertaken in this country’s history, and one that is occurring for primarily political reasons in open spite of public sentiment.

Contrary to popular opinion, one doesn’t have to be a bigot to find this a troubling trend for the future of Canadian democracy.

280,600 immigrants in a population of 33.8 million people is about 0.8%. In 1957, the Canadian population was more like 17.5 million, so the proportion of immigrants that year was twice the size as now (1.6%). I wonder how long it's been since Canada has imported this same proportion of it's population as immigrants. Or, more to the point, as non-economic immigrants (0.57%).

I'm for increased immigration in my own country, but based on nationalistic evangelism rather than economic grounds. In bad economic times it makes sense to lessen the burden where possible, and a temporary reduction in immigration rates until the economy improves might work to that end.

In defense of the USA's GOP, it is common in that party to oppose illegal immigration and uncommon to oppose immigration generally. Though it may not be a representative sample of society at large, most immigrants I know support Republicans and most Republicans I know support and befriend immigrants.

You say that 54% of immigrants are "simply relatives of other immigrants; either sponsored latecomers joining family members already settled, or those brought along at the time as spouses or 'dependents'." While I don't question that statistic, it sounds like you're making the assumption that none of those 54% of immigrants are going to help us in any way. A spouse can still provide value to the Canadian economy, and a dependent, when they get older, can also be of great value.

Oh, absolutely. But my point was that the system is in no way designed with such logic in mind. I don't think it's good for such a sweeping government program to be justified with a lot of after-the-fact, "well, this MIGHT happen…" theoretical arguments.

Also, I crunched the numbers wrong last night. The actual total of relative immigrants for 2010 is closer to 60%.

Well, they have to promise to care for them for a certain number of years, yes. That's the whole point of being classified as "dependent." But the government of Canada cannot deny entitlement services to Canadian citizens or permanent residents who qualify for them, regardless of their immigrant background.

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Anise Shaw, J.J. McCullough. J.J. McCullough said: Here's a new toon and a long editorial about Canada's non-sense making immigration policy: http://bit.ly/f6z6r1 […]

Granted, more numbers are needed but "dependents" are ironically frequently depended on. How much value is it for working families utilizing relatives "dependent" on them to take care of children, do chores, make food, etc. I'd like to see stats but I'd bet that there's a larger economic benefit from dependents than the minority of economic-class immigrants because immigrated family members free up immigrants to work (especially shift or transient work), make it easier to integrate, create a stronger community that creates the environment that draws the economic class of immigrants, and partially attenuates the dependence on the state.

I really hope the spirit of whats printed here was also included in your letter to the post. That blurb to the post seems dominated by themes that are frankly racist if that was the complete context. To give an example, you seem to create divisions between worthy and unworthy immigrants who are being judged against measures that are never really stated…… which leaves readers to assume any number of unsavory things about their implicit meanings. As an example of how my own writing can be desperately sloppy, I really don't mean to personalize the fault of that example to you. Rather, I want to double check the philosophical honesty of those two categories.

You've written at length to the absurdity of Canadian Nationalism and its equally absurd popularity. The Canadian people being against increased immigration does sound like a part of that. The government support is decidedly not, that is assuming the government is actually interested in policy and not just its own longevity. The economic argument for immigration seems dubious. As you noted, even when immigration works to the advantage of the countries "natives" (I use that would with a great deal of sheepish coughing) it's difficult to say that such advantage is being shared with those very immigrants.

Generally having a larger labor pool is beneficial for an economy. I'm an American, and am glad even for the low-skill ones. Most industrialized countries with little to no immigration are setting themselves up for a severe labor shortage. The Japanese seem to think they can use robots instead, but there are a huge number of jobs we're going to need to fill, especially with a rapidly aging population.

The last few years seem to have everyone convinced that the economy is a big zero-sum game, that there are only X number of jobs to go around, and we need to protect our workers. Quite frankly, that's rather knee-jerk, reactionary thinking. The demand portion of the labor market has shifted dramatically in the last 30 or so years, and the pain we're seeing is people struggling to adjust to it.

It isn't a surprise that the people most adamant about immigrants are also often strongly in favor of tariffs and other protectionist measures; they have a fundamentally pessimistic view of the economy. As an American, one of the things I'm very appreciative of is the widespread agreement in both political parties that this is a dangerous perspective to have, and that an innovative and dynamic economy is essential.

While I like your comics and I generally find your commentary interesting, I have to say that I find this post highly offensive. You're suggesting that the only immigrants valuable to Canada are the "economic class", and that the rules should be stricter on dependents. As a Canadian who was once an immigrant, this hits a nerve. You're ignoring that so-called dependents contribute to Canadian culture, and ultimately the economy. While I was techically a dependent when my family immigrated, I'm on my way to graduating from university and contributing to the economy, and this is generally the case with children of immigrants.

The sad thing about your argument is that you seem to have forgotten that Canada is a nation of immigrants. Look back into your family tree; I'd be surprised if it takes more than a couple of generations to find an ancestor that immigrated. I agree with you that politicians shouldn't state vague economic reasons for increasing immigration, but immigration is a complex topic that affects much more than just the economy.

My mother is actually an immigrant, so it doesn't take much for me to appreciate what immigrant Canadians can contribute to this country. But when analyzing a big picture issue like this, I don't think it's too helpful to focus on the personal, because it's easy to make a personal justification for just about anything.

Again, my stance is far more anti-government than it is anti-immigrant. People need to stop thinking about immigration in romantic language, and as something that just sort of "happens," like the tides, and instead honestly recognize it for what it is: a government program. And any government program, especially one with as many inherent risks to the nation as immigration, needs a strong, functional justification before it can be supported.

I think the numbers suggest that the current justification for Canada's immigration policy ("it benefits the economy!") is just flat-out false. If we want to abandon that, and pursue a different goal, like enriching Canada's multi-cultural character, then fine, let's have that discussion. But I don't think that argument would be very popular.

It's true that Canada is a nation of immigrants, but again, immigration has historically been a government policy to address different problems than we face today. In the 19th Century, Canada was still an underpopulated arctic wasteland, and we needed to colonize and settle much of the country in order to establish sovereignty within our claimed borders and form a substantial enough population to assert significant commercial and political power on the world's stage. Immigration was a big part of that. Those goals having been achieved, however, it's now fair to reexamine the policy. At no point in our history was Canada's immigration policy ever just about "immigration for its own sake," even though that seems to be a popular ahistorical assumption today.

What? JJ's post is disputing the claim that increased immigration is directly beneficial to the economy. How does saying "I'm an immigrant, and not contributing yet" and "Your parents might have been immigrants!" contradict that?

One thing to note is that a large number of those sponsored immigrants are relatives of the 'economic' immigrants. Without such a system, we're much less likely to KEEP those economic immigrants without them.

For example, my boss (a professor and researcher at a university, and a Canada Research Chair), loves Canada and has no desire to move away (he's on his way to full citizenship). However, were he not able to bring over his family and sponsor them, there's no way he'd stay here. By the way you parse the stats, that'd look terrible because those he sponsored to enter would outnumber him (and not be economic immigrants themselves), even though these 'sponsored' immigrants are very smart and productive themselves.

And to clarify, Canada is currently sitting pretty at a 1.6 births per person, which is almost a whole number under the required 2.1 to maintain the population as is with no growth. That's a pretty big problem.

I agree with many people here are saying. Dependents are not so dismissible, since they include children and spouses. Another way immigrants bring people into the country is through work. You can legally emigrate to Canada, if you can prove you have work waiting for you on arrival. If family owns a store or shop, they can bring their non-immediate relatives over as workers.

I think the immigrant class people need to worry about are refugees. Many refugees in Canada are war criminals or just criminals who use the refugee system to escape retribution and punishment in their own countries. Canada's system is screwed this way because it won't deport someone facing death in another country, even if these people are criminals and murderers. Case in point: Nur Chowdhury who killed the Bangladeshi president in 1972.

Canada also seems to be obsessed with playing the role of hospital for everyone. I once read an article in a newspaper arguing that banning HIV/AIDS-positive people from migrating to Canada is discriminatory. This kind of stupidity is unacceptable.

Actually less people in a country will not make the economy shrink automatically, just look at the increased living standars for the common people after the Black Death. That we need immigrants to "take care of us when we are older" is a tale made up by leftist communist swines who wishes to change the voting demographic and ethnic composition of a country.

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